


Like a Setting Sun

by airspaniel



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Addiction, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gen, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-22
Updated: 2010-09-22
Packaged: 2017-10-12 03:04:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/120059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airspaniel/pseuds/airspaniel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five addicts John Watson has known.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Setting Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/2727.html?thread=5072551#t5072551) over at [](http://sherlockbbc-fic.com/profile)[**sherlockbbc_fic**](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/). _"5 addicts that John Watson has known (he can include himself in the count if you want). +1 who kicked the habit."_
> 
> I didn't quite find the plus one. Comments/crit always welcome!

_i. alcohol_

His father is a good man. John believes this with all the fervency an eight-year-old can manage, despite the sound of breaking glass and the way his mother is crying, echoing upstairs from the kitchen.

Harry is less forgiving, three years older than her brother and sure she's got the world figured out. "Miserable old bastard," she says under her breath; quiet, even though there is no one else to hear except for John. Even though the noise from downstairs is drowning everything else out, even here. "I hope he dies."

"You don't mean that," John says, eyes wide and shocked.

"I do," she repeats. "I hope he chokes to death on his scotch. Hope he _drowns_ in it."

" _Harry_."

"I mean it. I _hate_ him," Harry hisses, vehement, and John can see the sparkle of unshed tears on her eyelashes.

"He's our Dad," he says, reasonably.

"He's not my dad," she spits back, swiping a hand over her eyes. It comes away wet. "He's a _drunk_ , and I wish he was dead!"

John doesn't have anything else he can say to that. He throws his arms around his sister, hugging her even as she tries to push him away. She struggles harder and harder, and John just hangs on, until eventually she's fighting to pull him closer, holding him so tightly that it's difficult to breathe. Her face is smooshed against the top of his head, and John's hair is tangled with her breath and damp with her tears.

He doesn't let go.

His father is a good man. But when he leaves them, John isn't really surprised.

 

_ii. alcohol (again)_

"You," Harry slurs, flicking her fingernail against the tip of John's nose. "Have _no_ idea how to have fun." Her hair is in complete disarray, a riot of colors tangled up around her face. There's red to match her flushed cheeks; blue and purple to match her lips, where whatever she's been drinking all evening has left them stained.

John is fast losing his patience. "Come on, Harry,' he grits, shifting her arm across his shoulders. "Up you get."

"You just…" she continues, all but a dead weight slumped into John's side. "You just come in here like you're _so_ perfect an'… an'… an' you _kill_ all my fun."

It's not far to Harry's flat from the club, a fact for which John is incredibly thankful. He's plenty strong, but his sister can be very heavy when she wants to be; and if she doesn't want to move, then she won't. Every step forward is an effort.

"With your _rugby_ , an' your _medical school_ ," she says, as if they're dirty words. "An' you haven't got _any_ idea what fun even _is_."

"Harry, I'm trying to help you," John manages, doing his best not to say what he really wants to say; what's on the very tip of his tongue and the very front of his mind.

 _Apple doesn't fall far from the tree, after all_.

"I bet you're a _virgin_ ," Harry accuses, poking her finger against John's chest. Even through his jumper and shirt, it sort of hurts, and he hates the way he knows his face has gone red, even if she can't possibly notice.

She doesn't look up at him, her head lolling on his shoulder, but he can feel her laugh. "I bet you are. I bet I've had loads more girls than you."

"Shut up," says John, even though that last is almost certainly true. It seems like Harry has a new girlfriend every week, an endless parade of pretty enough young women who never last more than four or five days.

John isn't jealous. It actually makes him feel sorry for her.

"Touched a… touched a nerve, have I?" asks Harry, and she sounds like she's seconds away from falling asleep, leaving heavily against her brother.

"Yeah," John answers, softly. _But not the one you think._

 

_iii. love_

John likes Clara immensely. Likes her warmth and her rapier wit and the way her nose crinkles when she laughs.

Clara likes Harry. Clara _loves_ Harry, god bless her; and what is even more surprising than that is: Harry loves her back. John hopes it will be enough.

He thinks for a while that it might be, after he stands next to his sister at the wedding. Harry has never looked so radiant as then, in the rented tuxedo with her hands shaking, and Clara taking them in her own to stop the trembling. Clara, who looks like an angel.

Clara, who would do anything for Harry.

Clara, who calls John in the middle of the night, sobbing. Who finds the strength, from some deep place inside her, to walk away.

Who goes right back again, when Harry says, "I _need_ you."

Each time, John hopes it's the last. That Clara will stay away for good. Will build herself the life that she deserves, with someone who loves her more than anything. More than the bottle.

Each time, he's wrong.

"I love her," Clara says, as if everything else is erased. "That's all." He believes her, even though he knows that in six months time she'll be gone again. And back again, inevitably.

Addicts never can stay away.

 

_iv. nicotine_

Lestrade jumps a bit when John turns the corner, drops his hand briefly to his side to hide the lit cigarette. Then he shakes his head, smiling at his own foolishness, and takes a deep drag.

"Thought you quit," John says; an observation, not a judgment.

Lestrade just shrugs. "I did," he admits, studying the cigarette in his hand, thumb stroking almost affectionately over the filter as he flicks the ash away. "Quit four times last year, too. It never takes."

John leans back against the brick, a companionable distance away from the DI. "The patches don't help?"

"Oh, they help," says Lestrade, bringing the cigarette back to his lips and leaving it there this time, letting it bob up and down against his lower lip as he speaks. "But it isn't the same, you know? It's as much mental as it is physical. I need something to do with my hands. The routine of it."

Before John can respond, Lestrade cuts him off. "And don't tell me pens and candies. Last time I tried those I got ink on all of my shirts and gained twenty pounds." He puts a hand on his stomach for emphasis, and John laughs.

It's almost a shame that he doesn't smoke. It's remarkably nice to take a break to just stand together and _breathe_.

"What's the longest you've gone?" John asks, as much to make conversation as out of curiosity.

"Nine months," Lestrade replies instantly, something soft in his expression. "Right before my daughter was born."

John smiles, surprised. "I didn't know you had kids."

"Just the one. Amelia," Lestrade inhales deeply, stares into the distance. "She lives with her grandmother now, ever since my wife…"

He trails off, but John doesn't need him to finish the sentence. His wife died. He still wears his wedding ring.

"I'm sorry," John says, knowing it's not enough.

Lestrade finishes his cigarette, flicks the butt out into the street.

"Anyway," he says, "it doesn't matter if you have them or not; if you've quit or not. You think about them constantly. _Want_ them constantly."

He stands up then, puts his hands in his pockets. "Good night, Dr. Watson," says Lestrade as he passes, and John is left alone with his thoughts.

 

_v. sherlock_

John doesn't miss the war, no matter what anyone else says.

How could he miss it? The smell of blood and sweat and smoke, the screaming of men and engines and weapons; watching people, his _friends_ die under his hands, his fingers slick and wet with their blood. It torments him in his sleep. When he can _manage_ to sleep.

He doesn't miss knowing that he's dead already. Doesn't miss the hollow ache that knowledge left behind when he _survived_.

A bullet hits the brick next to his head, sending dust and sharp fragments flying, and John is snapped back to the here and now. He ducks into an alley, counts one - two - three, waiting for his assailant to catch up.

The man follows him at a dead sprint, expecting John to have kept running. John catches him under the chin with the heel of his hand, and the man chokes and crumples to the ground. He hasn't taken a breath, hasn't even begun to get his bearings, and John has no intention of letting him do either.

The man's wrist grinds under John's shoe and he drops the gun. In one fluid move, John picks up the weapon, disassembles it, and throws the pieces deeper into the alley.

The bullets he keeps. .45 caliber; they'll be useful later.

"John, hurry up!" Sherlock calls from overhead. He's standing on the roof, black coat billowing like he's bloody _Batman_ , and he's the most brilliant thing John has ever seen.

He doesn't hesitate, slams the butt of his Browning against his would-be attacker's temple and watches the lights go out, then swings himself up to the fire escape. His heart is pounding and his nerves are singing, and there's nothing like this rush. _Nothing_.

John doesn't miss the war.

He doesn't _have_ to.


End file.
